Fast forward a few weeks, and this same friend who had
praised the new regulations now starts
complaining. Her
boss is making her track her hours. She has to come in at a
certain time and cannot clock in early or late. She can no longer
run to a doctor's appointment during the day without
either losing
pay or deducting it from her PTO bank. She was upset. She
just wants to be treated like a professional! What happened?
[links in original, bold added]

If it weren't for the
fact that we are all affected by this law (and the precedent it sets), it would be comical
to see this fool getting exactly what she deserves, but it
isn't. Those of us who realize that flexible hours are a two-way
street and want the freedom to accept or reject them are losing this
choice. (This turns out to include
telecommuting.)

Perhaps there is no cure for what I call
the "dictator
fantasy," but perhaps there is something we can do to blunt its
effects. The next time I hear someone fantasize about "managers" (or
any other "bad" guy du jour) "getting theirs", I plan to consider
how that might blow back on them and ask how that suits
them. Perhaps, if more of us who don't use the government as
a substitute brain help those who do, we will tamp down on all the
foolish clamoring for the government to dictate every aspect of our
lives. This is no substitute for broader cultural activism, but
perhaps it can buy some time by slowing down the rate of growth of
government "planning."

2 comments:

It's still comical to see the fool getting what she deserves. I can point and laugh at her even while wishing that the *rest* of us weren't *also* going to be getting what she deserves.

Put a little differently: what's happening to that idiot is justice and should be celebrated as such. What's going to happen to people in similar situations who do not support this kind of government interference in the economy is injustice and should be identified as such.